Chill half day in Auckland before flying to Hong Kong.
Back to Auckland
Spent the morning just packing up and heading out (slowly, cause I was baby giraffing and learning to walk again). Drove back to Auckland to meet back up with Nadine (who I met on the ship during Segment 1).
Out and Around Auckland
After dropping off the rental, Nadine was nice enough to take me around her city and we caught up on all the ship happenings and new places to travel to. Really fun to meet up with friends from the cruise and one of the benefits of going so early in life is making all these friends we’ll have for the rest of our life.
We drove to a park, but it was the weekend and super busy, so wasn’t a ton of parking, and we ended up at a very nice little cafe for some breakfast. Got an iced coffee and it was DELICIOUS with the ice cream on top. The eggs benedict were delicious as well.
Great time out and about Auckland (especially cause I didn’t have to drive anymore).
Auckland Airport
Got to the airport and checked in for my direct flight to Hong Kong, it was nice to finally not have any layovers on this segment of travel.
Checked in, and got in line, and between security and immigration, it took almost an hour to get through to the gates. Good thing I had plenty of time, but there were quite a few frantic people in line.
Flight to Hong Kong
Flight was pretty uneventful, took a couple short naps, interspersed with food and drinks whenever they lit up the cabin.
Hong Kong
Always great to visit the homeland for both my parents. Whenever I’m in Hong Kong, it’s always a kind of surreal experience. Born and raised in the middle of the USA, I was a pretty rebellious kid and wanted to fit in, so I refused to speak Cantonese as everyone around me spoke English.
I can still understand about 80% of what is going on around me in Cantonese, but I know that when I speak it, it sounds super wrong and with an American accent, so I just….don’t.
So I’m not really at home in Hong Kong and in America, when people are throwing micro aggressions my way and telling me America can’t possibly be my home either, it’s always this weird experience of “where is home for me actually?”. Maybe it’s a ship :P.
Navigated out of the airport and to the he Pickup spot, waiting for my Uber, but the traffic for the Uber was insane. Took about 30 minutes for my Uber to go about .5km. I seriously thought about just walking over to the car, since I could see him off in the distance, but there was a fence, and also he wouldn’t have been able to get through the traffic anyway without coming to where I was.
Finally got to the apartment around 11pm, and was trying to get to a high floor, when I got in the elevator. The other person in the elevator watched me panic looking for buttons that were higher than 9, then was helpful and helped me. Apparently you just know around there that you click the buttons multiple times and then hit enter (i.e. floor 95 = 9 + 5 + EN). Clearly, I’m not bougie enough to just know that….I prefer my 1 to 2 story houses with a garage.
Settled in and winded down a little bit before just passing out after another long day of travel, but glad to be here, and ready to rejoin the ship!
Vibe Check
5 parts joy
Feedback
Leave a comment or question if you have any thoughts! Anything you want to know about as we go around the world? Any things you want to share as feedback, or any images that particularly spoke to you. I’ll try to read all of them as time permits!
Matti 
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